I MUST put the book down!

Ugh... I need a nap already and it's only 8am! My mom got me started on reading the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evonvich (sp??). They are AWESOME!! That is why, for the last 3 nights, it was 11:30pm before I was able to pry the book out of my hand and go to bed. I'm on the 3rd book right now and have heard (via mom) that they just get better and better. I don't know if I can handle it!! :)

I have also been playing with Ember and Aaron's engagement photos that were taken by my new Nikon D40X (thank you wonderful hubby!) on my new Photoshop Elements 6.0 (thanks Lee for the Christmas present even if I had to sit on you to make you by me something, you crap!). I bought some actions from Lady Ren and they are awesome!! I will post them after I let Ember pick her favorite just in case she wants to ~unveil~ them:) There is so such you can do with PSE and I'm sure I haven't even hit the tip of the iceberg!

For you scrapbookers... I did finish my album/journal for Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas class on time last Sunday. This is the finished product:

It was a great experience and I will definitely be doing it again next year. I'm will certainly make some pages ahead of time to help with those crazy busy days that I just didn't have time. That way I won't fall behind, as I did (slightly) this year.

Happy Hump Day:)

Happy New Year!!!

One of my resolutions is to be a better blogger! It was such a crazy December that I looked at my blog and thought "I need to update that." but that was as far as I got. OOPS!!
So, Happy 2008!
There are going to be several momentous occasions for us in 2008! The first is that I turn 30 in March!! WOWZA!!! I look forward to my 30s. I think a lot of good things will happen in my 30s. More to come on that front...
My best friend, Ember, got engaged on Christmas Eve!! YAY Ember:) She and Aaron are getting married December 6, 2008. It will be a great time! They already have the church and reception location reserved as of last night. I took their engagement pictures 2 weekends ago. They turned out really nice, if I do say so myself! I need to get them edited in the next week...come on photoshop help me out:) I'm a newbie to photoshop but have been playing with it so hopefully I can get the look I want out of their pics. I will post some of them after I finish with the editing. I got a new camera (Nikon D40X) for Christmas....hence the taking of photos! I really need to read my manual and get more knowledgeable on my photography. That's another NY's resolution!!
Anyway!! My goal is to post 5 days a week. I can do it!

Happy tuesday:)

The start of my Journal Your Christmas class...

Cover of my album
My Manifesto (day 1)
What Christmas weather is like (day 2).

This is a 2 page layout, with the above and below pages.

Snow snow and more snow!! That's what we had this weekend! In the picture directly above this sentence, you can see the hydraulic boom that Lance is on. He rented this for the weekend in order to make the Christmas light hanging much easier on him. It was pretty cool!

Happy Monday!!

WOW!

That is all I have to say about our Christmas card and photo! I saw the proofs last night and WOW! They are so great. We had a good friend of ours (whose also a very talented photographer) take our picture this year (Thanks Paula!! You rock!). Paula is ~very~ ambitious and skilled so we thought "Why not take pics with both dogs, the horse and us?". At least we didn't attempt the cats too! EEK! Paula is so great with animals. Plus she's very knowledgeable with horses and how a horse should look. We, horse people, are very picky when it comes to how our horses look in photos. All in all, the animals were great. Scout tuckered out at the end but Teddy and Faith stood there with their ears forward the entire time. We had some very interesting candid photo ops in amongst the set-up poses. The nice thing is Paula takes pics of those too. Those are some of the best pics! I can't wait to show you some of them. They actually turned out so well that we are going to do a few other things with the photos. Like wallpaper the house with them!! :) OK, not really but they will adorn many a wall in our house. Paula also custom designed our Christmas card. It is perfect! Many, many thanks to Paula and her talented self! Penny too for the comic relief while taking photos. Penny was doing ballet jumps behind Paula trying to keep the animals attention. Needless to say it worked very well. It was funny as hell too!



Well, this is the weekend before our Christmas Tour of Homes so Lance and I will be decorating and cleaning like mad! We also have my work Christmas party on Saturday which I am partially in charge of hosting/running. Hopefully we won't get too much snow (there's already a Winter Storm Watch as of yesterday in place for Sat!!) and yuck this weekend. Dont' get me wrong, I love snow but only when it's softly falling in big fat flakes. Not pelleting the crap out of you sideways!



There will be lots of pictures of the weekend on Monday so stay tuned!! I'm also taking a Journal Your Christmas class (online) starting tomorrow...December 1!!! I can't wait to get started on that. I can't wait to have some time to scrap and crack open the cricut my mom bought for me on Black Friday!! It's STILL in the box. That's got to be a crime in some states!!!

Have a great weekend everyone!! If you are in the B'ville area, stop by...we'll put you to work...um, I mean...no that's is really what I mean!! ha ha ha
Merry Christmas :^)

Gobble Gobble!!

Happy Day Before Thanksgiving to All!!

Lance and I are off to Maple Grove to spend the holiday with L's parents, brother, SIL & niece. It will be so nice to just relax and not have to cook! Not that I mind cooking, because I actually love to cook but I'm just swamped with all that is going on in our life. MUST.SLOW.DOWN. Here's what the Haugen household looked like this weekend (it still looks like this actually!EEK!)

Lance and his amazing painting/edging ability!! I'm SO glad that he doesn't think I'm a very good edger! I've never been so happy about sucking at something in my entire life!! :^) tee hee hee


So, this is what we go home to tonight but tomorrow through Sunday will be relax! The work can wait:) We're going to the Lion King musical on Saturday night. Lance has never been to a musical so it will be a lot of fun.

Eat lots, drive safe, enjoy family and friends, be THANKFUL! Life is full of blessings, big and small. You just need to recognize them and say "How cool is that?".

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Merry Christmas!

Or at least Happy Holidays for those of you that think it's too early for Christmas. Not me!! We're already decorating for Christmas mainly because our home will be featured in the Holiday Tour of Homes this year but we do love Christmas in the Haugen household. I actually just signed up for a Journal Your Christmas scrapbook class earlier this week. It is to help you slow down and think about the true meaning of Christmas and really enjoy this festive time of year. I'll be posting my LO's for my journal here for all to see. Maybe it will inspire someone else to slow down and reflect on what the holiday and Christmas mean to you and your family. Another reason I wanted to Christmas-ize our house early is because Lance and I really need to slow down and enjoy life. We've been living by the "Work Hard, Play Harder" motto for the last 2 years and it's time to sit back and relax. To enjoy each other, our animals, the dream home we're making, and the fabulous life we lead. We have been truely blessed in our life so we need to enjoy it and not run around like chickens with our heads cut off!
So here are my Christmas resolutions:
1. To slow down and smell the Christmas cookies (eat lots of them too!!)
2. Spend quality relaxing time with my wonderful hubby
3. Go to church every Sunday in December
4. Get together with friends and family without feeling the stress of trying to fit everyone in
5. To take lots of pictures to document the festive time (hopefully with my new camera!!)
6. To stay current and on task with my Christmas Journal

hmmm....what else?? If I come up with more I'll update my list! :)

Happy Thursday!

Velcome to Haugen's Halloween Extravaganza!

Enter if you dare.........

Mr. Scout "The Bubblebee"

&

Teddy "The Wizard"

Yes, I'm one of those pet parents that torture their "kids" with costumes!! I love it:)

What an awesome Halloween it was! We love to decorate for the holiday. The trick or treaters had a blast coming up to our house with the fog and motion sensor lights and screams. We make sure to put the scary and loud items higher so the little kids don't get too freaked out. We only had 2 little kids that wouldn't come up our side walk. Not too bad!

On the Mr. Scout front, he is obviously still hanging in there. He actual seems to be feeling better. He was diagnosed with pancreatitis and put on more meds and prescription moist food. He seems to be handling it pretty well. He gets his last pills this evening so we'll see how he does without the antibiotics. So far so good!

We are finally getting settled back in from our trip out to the AQHA Congress (horse show). We had a blast out there. My horse and I did really well. We didn't make the top 10 but now we know what we have to work on for next year. We also came home with a new truck and trailer (pics of it later!). We found a trailer we absolutely loved and the dealer gave us a great dealer on our trailer. The new trailer is much too big for our old truck so we traded that in too and got a bigger one. They are both awesome and haul beautifully too. Love them!! Lance says they are my 30th birthday present. Fine by me!!!! By the way, I'm not 30 until next March.

Happy November!